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Windows 7: How do I get my fat32 data onto my SATA drive?

Recently my old Win 2000 Pro OS, IDE driven computer crashed (black screen-no nothing but the Drives and cooling fans still spun) so I got a new E-Machines ET1831-05 (Windows 7) at Best Buy. I naively figured I could take the two HDD's from the old machine and put them on the new one in parallel with the drive it came with so I would be able to access my old data. I have program on those drives going back to the days of DOS 6 that I still use, believe it or not, in my everyday work.

So what happened was Windows 7 could see there was something in E: but when I clicked on E: a Win 7 error message appeared saying the drive was corrupted or had an unrecognized file system!

Then it says if I want to use the new drive I'll have to format it. Of course I declined that option! Jeez pressing the wrong mouse click and I would loose everything!

A buddy of mine said I had to get a Vantec SATA / IDE to USB .2.0 adapter and load the data by means of USB. So I got that and hooked it up, but basically there's the same error code. It sees E: is there but it doesn't recognize the file system and suggests I format the disk.

Other of my friends who are supposed to be knowledgeable lead me to believe that the problem is the file system on my old drive is fat32 and win 7 only understands NTSF. So researching this I found a site that told me to go into DOS command mode run convert from win32 to convert my fat32 files on the old drive to NTSF.

I tried that, but a dos error message appeared saying it could not convert files on a raw drive. In other words it recognizes nothing on the old drive but rather suggests that the drive was raw! (it was about 3/4 full on the old system).

So I'm stuck. Can anyone help?

Also I was wondering if there is any possible way after this problem is solved can I get my new computer to read a floppy drive? I know floppies are supposed to be ancient history but I have an old Toshiba Notebook that has no USB port, but I use the floppy from the toshiba to feed my desktop machine.

I mentioned this to my computer expert friend who told me I needed the vantec adapter and he said forget it.

For a start, Windows needs to be installed on a NTFS HDD and not FAT32. It can read file systems prior to that. USB sticks, for example, are all FAT-formatted by default.

You could try using a recovery software and see if it sees the files you have. There must be something wrong with the file system which is why W7 can't access your drive. Recovery software usually "bypass" file system protocols (e.g. the MFT), allowing it to read files on any drive. If your recovery software can see the files, your HDD and its connections is good and you'll have to find a solution involving either the OS, or the FS. If it can't read it, something's definitely wrong with either the HDD or its connections.

Win7 has no trouble using FAT32 disks. Microsoft has limited it so that you can't create FAT32 partitions larger than 32 GB using the Win7 formatting tools, but you can use larger partitions if you've formatted them in some other way. I'm not sure what the partition size limit is for FAT32, but it's larger than that.

I can't guess what your problem is, but it may be an issue with the drive itself, or at least its file structure. I have little experience with data recovery software, but I think that you may be about to become familiar with the subject, unless you have some other backup of your stuff.

Umm well that's what my computer friend who told me to get the Vantec unit said. You seem to be saying that's ridiculous, right?

OK, well let me try the other HDD from the old computer and see if I can access that. All I can say is when we had the present HDD as the master before I did the windows 7 setup, I got what looked like my old desktop back in reduced video resolution but everything seemed to be there. I didn't try to access any of the files though, after I saw my old desktop I just jumpered the old drive back to slave and let the new HDD do it's setup. After that it went like I said.

Thanks for the tips you guys! I'll get back to you after I do the swap and tell ya what happened!

OK, well let me try the other HDD from the old computer and see if I can access that. All I can say is when we had the present HDD as the master before I did the windows 7 setup, I got what looked like my old desktop back in reduced video resolution but everything seemed to be there. I didn't try to access any of the files though, after I saw my old desktop I just jumpered the old drive back to slave and let the new HDD do it's setup. After that it went like I said.

Thanks for the tips you guys! I'll get back to you after I do the swap and tell ya what happened!

Jim

Good news everyone! Turns out the problem was a mispositioned jumper on the suspected bad HDD. The diagram that they paste onto the drive as to where to put the jumpers is very confusing so I just decided to try different positions until something worked.

Anyway it looks like all my old files are accessed and I'm almost back in business, Almost except I tried running an old program (Which ran fine in Win 2000 pro) called GWbasic.exe in the dos window and I get a Windows error message says the current version of windows won't run it & I should contact the original Publisher (Microsoft) for the 64 bit version - Ha! A 64 bit version of a 1987 Dos program? I think back then they were still at 8 bit!

Fat chance, right? I bet there's nobody here old enough to have ever even heard of GW Basic!

I used to have a job back in the late 80's where part of the time I was writing GWBasic programs for technicians to use to calculate parameters for PC Power supply environmental tests, calibrations and diagnostics. They are still great for quick figuring Ohm's law, inductor values etc.

But hey maybe there are some old timers among you who could relate? Are there any Dos boxes that will actually work like the old dos?

Jim,
And what are you willing to loose, er bet, on anyone never hearing of GW Basic??? You may as well give it up now. I've not only heard of GW Basic, but it was one of the first lang's I programmed in..lol

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